Longevity Kitchen - Transform your Health
I feel so fortunate to have chosen Portugal to make up this phase of my life. I am 66 years young and feel healthier and stronger now than I ever have.
Nothing gives me greater joy than motivating people to eat well. My primary tool is flavor and using herbs and spices is an essential component of dietary change. If something doesn’t taste good you won’t eat it in the long run, no matter how good it is for you.
Science now has proven food is medicine and your most powerful tool against disease.
Before we get into combining flavors and spices I think it is important to ask yourself a few questions. Do you eat to live or live to eat? Do you cook or does someone else in your family prepare meals.Do you want to cook or be a part of the cooking process. How much time are you willing to devote to cooking during the week or weekend? What are your goals pertaining to food? Do you want to become inspired or make a transition to a more healthful and sustainable way of eating? Do you have a family history of chronic disease? Do you currently have any health challenges? When we become conscious we can find solutions.
IF cooking is really daunting for you, consider finding a friend who loves to cook and make dates with them, participate in cooking workshops or if you have health issues consider meeting with a nutritionist who can help you create a list of foods that enhance longevity into meals you find yourself willing to make. If you want to really lose weight and keep it off you need to develop a conscious relationship with what you eat. You’ve got this and if you need some support please reach out to me.
Balancing Flavors
Back to making food taste amazing. It is important to create a symphony of flavors by balancing the following flavors. Fat,acid, salt and sweet. Everyone has a liking to different tastes so it is up to you, the inspired cook, to create that balance.
Olive oil is the delivery system for flavor. As we age our taste buds become less sensitive, so we don’t taste foods as well. I use the best quality extra virgin olive oil I can find ( you can taste the difference). If you study the cuisine of the most long lived populations, you will find that many of them make extensive use of olive oil.
The other healthy fat to consider is Ghee, clarified butter. This fat is a carrier that brings the nutrients of food deep into the tissue layers of the body. When spices are tempered in ghee, their medicinal qualities become available to these tissues. Come to one of my workshops to learn more about this amazing healing fat and how to easily incorporate it into your daily life.
Next is the citrus flavor. Unlike other acids such as vinegar, it is not overpowering. A squeeze of lemon, lime or orange has a brightening effect, energizing the taste and getting the flavors to pop. Also there is the added health bonus of acids and fats of slowing the release of sugars into the bloodstream, lowering their glycemic load. Great for people concerned with high blood sugar or diabetes. Acids also jump start the salivary glands, improving digestions. Think of the taste of biting into a lemon now and you can already feel the salivary glands begin to turn on.
Sea Salt is my salt of choice because unlike table salt it retains so many trace minerals.
It combines with other ingredients and breaks down fiber, particularly in vegetables which helps the taste come forth and gives the sensation of moving flavors towards the front of the mouth.
From a health perspective, salt and sodium has been seen to be the enemy but that is because it is extremely overused in processed foods. I am speaking about using whole foods and becoming conscious of lessening and eventually removing all processed foods from your cupboards and life.
Grade B organic Maple syrup is my go to sweetener. It is far more healthful than refined sugar. IF you could change one thing to improve your health it would be to remove sugar. Easier said than done in Portugal. Again, it is a conscious choice towards living in optimum health. Maple syrup has a mellow rather than overwhelming sweetness and has a way of rounding out flavors. Grade B has way more minerals than Grade A and a slightly richer flavor.
Experiment and learn to trust yourself to combine these flavors in your cooking. If something is too sweet, sour, bland, salty or just needs a spark add one of these flavors to balance and enhance your food.
Spicy Solutions is another important component of cooking for longevity. Stay tuned for my next article or consider coming to one of my monthly workshops at my home kitchen in Salir do Porto. I can’t wait to inspire you in the kitchen to create delicious meals.
It takes some effort to become conscious and change lifestyle habits that aren’t serving your body or mind. We are privileged to have so much information available but what we don’t realize is that it takes support and consistency to make changes so they become habits.
Also, most of us are in denial about the damage we are causing our systems by overeating or eating foods that have little or no nutritional value. Together let’s change your relationship with cooking into great tastes, health benefits and increased longevity.
Longevity Cooking Workshops the first Saturday of the month. Email me to register, space is limited to 8. nancy@nancymedwell.com includes lunch.